Work Text:
Luca Balsa.
I am writing this to you because I trust you. I have to come clean.
In my past... I sinned.
My hands are soiled red with the permanent paint of blood.
My mind had gone blank. I lost control. I was still a boy, I didn’t know.
Actually. That’s a lie. I knew what I was doing and I did it anyway.
The landlord. The night watchman.
I killed them both.
For vengeance. For money. To feel something that wasn’t turmoil.
I spent every night living in that shack outside the church in the freezing cold, hungry and poor. I was struggling and doing the absolute bare minimum to survive.
So, since I have pulled the veil off of this pathetic truth, what am I to you now?
A murderer? A sinner? A cruel man who deserves nothing but the cruelest of destinies? I should be burned at the stake for my crimes. Pelted to death by rocks and stones. I committed an irreversible tragedy for nothing other than my own gain. You should run. You should stay away from me. I am a murderer. I am a filthy, blood-coated man. I am nothing worth saving or cherishing. I am a ‘man’ of no value.
I should let you go. I should let you escape my grasp to go and find another. One that isn’t tainted with the stains of murder. You should find a prince. Not the one that you had thought you found in me. I should set you free, give you up, wave and say my farewells as I allow the rotting and barren atmosphere to eat me whole.
You should live a life that is clean of a monster like me. A monster drenched in red, from the head to the toe. Inside and out.
I am a pathetic excuse for a man, for I am selfish. You should go, but at the same time I want to hold you close and keep you in my arms. If anything, that should be more than enough to leave me behind. I should repulse you. I am dirty, stained and impure. A monster should now lay its hands on another. Yet here I am, requesting to indulge in my desires as I should be pushing you away.
You should leave me behind before I can catch you and drag you into my man-made hell that I have shaped for myself. Leave me in the dark, bottomless pits of hell where I slowly decay and rot alone, cold, and hungry. As I always have been and always should be. No monster like me deserves to even think of going to heaven. Ever since birth, it never should have been an option. However, even then I entertained my delusions of grandeur and purity.
I became infatuated with the life of the innocent. Lutz Cemetery became the sole reason for my lowly existence. But of course, only the pure, innocent and the holy ever rest in such a place as Lutz.
It was pathetic of me to ever think that I had a chance at earning such a place.
My mother should be resting there. She should be among the kindest of souls. But instead, she raised a monster. Both inside and out. She risked entering the gates of Heaven to cater to a demonic existence such as mine.
My mother always told me that I was a kind soul. A misunderstood child of God.
If that was the case. Why was she slaughtered in front of my eyes for showing me the bare basics of decency? The village crowded us in pitchforks and flames. They tortured her. They left me alive, to live the rest of my days in my own mind, replaying the events over and over and over again until the memories led me astray. Her torturous death was nothing but a tale to the village. The message was loud and clear.
Monsters like me don’t deserve anything in life.
They say God loves everyone. If that much was so, then why must I face only hatred? Why am I thrown into damnation? Ridiculed and destined to lay in the deepest ditch in hell. I’m a monster. I was carved out to be so from the start. There was nothing I could have done - nothing I can ever do - to cleanse myself of such monstrous traits. I am nothing but a source of entertainment to those above. A laughing stock. A sick and twisted comedy routine in which God pulls me by the strings like a puppeteer, leading me through every possible worst-case scenario for the thrill of it.
The village wanted me dead, but even as I pleaded for them to do so, they instead settled on the one fate worse than death. They chose to make me suffer. They made me continue living when I wanted so desperately to quit. They took away anything they could. I was paid the furthest from the minimum wage needed to even buy a single loaf of bread. They wanted to see how long I’d last in a living reincarnation of Hell.
It was then that I realised how corrupt the church really was. Lutz Cemetery was not as pure and holy as it seemed. If Lutz was so grand and innocent, then why are those who sent my mother to the grave now resting there? It was hypocritical.
Nothing in life was ever fair, and so I stopped playing fair.
Luca,
I continued sinning.
I robbed the graves. I stole from the rich and sold them for profit. I sold all that they carried to the coffin, including their own bones and remains. I’m a monster. A thief. A vandaliser of the eternally resting. I am a filthy criminal who deserves nothing more than divine punishment. I deserve the cruelest, most violent and dark ending. I deserve no sympathy. Not in the slightest.
But even then... Even now...
You remained.
I wonder, will you continue to remain now? You know of my crimes. My sins. Everything that should drive you the furthest away that you can possibly get. I deserve none of your kindness.
You said you are a murderer too, but we are not the same. You were wrongly accused, forced to live the life as a criminal. I executed with purpose. With meaning. Every bruise, slash and application of brute force was intentional.
I am a sinner. You are an angel. I am no prince like you say I am. There is nothing but evil, cruelty and sin brewing in my blood. I deserve nothing more than your pure, raging and overflowing hatred.
And to that I say, leave me. You cannot fight this no matter how hard you attempt to do so. This is for the best.
You will never see me again, and If you were to ever stumble upon my wretched, blood stained soul from here on out, I will be six feet under.
Upon receiving this letter, you will finally be free from my strangling grasp.
Rejoice. Sing to the heavens. Cry out the name of The Lord and weep, for the demon will finally exorcise itself.